LG 27UD59 review: successor of inexpensive 4K monitor tested

Good and inexpensive choice even less expensive

By David van DantzigTuesday 24 July 2018 04:59

Introduction

Near the end of 2016 we reviewed a 4K-monitor that proved to be extremely popular, the LG 27UD58. This was not very surprising, as this 27-inch ultra-hd monitor offered an unprecedented price-performance ratio at the time. Whereas direct competitors had prices ranging from 445 pounds / 500 euros to 530 pounds / 600 euros for an ips-panel, this LG was available for well under 354 pounds / 400 euros. The successor to that monitor has been available for a while now, the 27UD59. At the time of writing we can find it for less than 265 pounds / 300 euros in our Price Comparison, which also makes this monitor rather inexpensive. Looking at other monitors in this price range you can only expect to find a tn-panel. This raises the question, are we as satisfied with the ’59 as we were with the 27UD58?

The phenomenon of the ultra-hd monitor is probably something you know well enough by now, which is why we will not go into great detail here. With a 27-inch resolution, the density of 8 million pixels is already high enough to make use of software scaling, but in 2018 this is not a big issue with Windows 10 and modern software. Mainly the relatively small applications - such as driver software of gaming peripherals, unfortunately - that do not always work well together, but if necessary you can still manage 100% scaling with 27-inch 4K. Especially if it is only necessary for a short while.

In some cases, even with this many pixels, people experience the non- 1-to-1 scaling as disruptive, especially with text. Apart from that, this segment offers a nice combination of a format that we would not yet describe as "too big" and an effective workspace - depending on your scaling setting - that is at least as big as a qhd-monitor, with the understanding that additional pixels are also used to display more (colour) details and smoother transitions.

The prices of 27-inch ultra-hd ips-monitors are now much lower than what they were at the end of 2016, but most of these models still cost at least 399 pounds / 450 euros. The MSRP of the LG 27UD59 is about 310 pounds / 349 euros, but looking at our Price Comparison we can find it for less than 265 pounds / 300 euros already. As mentioned before, this amount of money would usually only get you a monitor with a tn-panel. This is of course something that the customer likes, ‘more for less’. Time to find out what this monitor, available in black and white, can do.

In short

The LG 27UD59 is very similar to its popular predecessor, the 27UD58. You get a lot of monitor for very little money. However, the accents are slightly different: with this model, color quality and uniformity are significantly better compared with the older monitor, but the response times are somewhat worse (albeit sufficient for 60 Hz without ghosting). The price-performance ratio is once again unrivaled.